5 Tips That Will Help You Spend Less on Books

Having a major reading habit is great. But having a major book-buying habit? Not so much.

Why Is It a Problem?

Racking up credit card debt and blowing a big chunk of your budget on stacks of the latest hardcovers isn’t the best idea. It can get you into financial trouble if you’re not careful. What if something goes wrong? What if there’s an emergency and you don’t have anything left in your account to pay for it?

If that happens, don’t panic. You can ask a friend for an IOU, or you can apply for an online loan to help you cover the costs and get through this sticky situation. When looking for online loans, make sure that you narrow your search to options available in your state. For instance, if you’re a bookworm living in Waco or Dallas, you should look for online loans in Texas to help cover your emergency costs. You don’t want to waste your time and energy looking through websites that don’t cater to Texans.

To avoid this sticky situation altogether, you should try to get better control of your book-buying habit and find some budget-friendly alternatives. Here are five of them:

1. Go to Your Local Library

Do you want to read a big pile of books without spending a fortune? Then, you should head to the library! This is what they were made for. You can access paperbacks, hardcovers, magazines, newspapers, eBooks and audiobooks through the public library. All you need to do is sign up for a library card or e-card. It should be free for residents.

What if your local library doesn’t have the exact book that you want? You can send them a title suggestion, and they might order a copy or two. It’s that easy.

2. Find Freebies Online

Another way that bookworms can cut costs is by going to online resources like Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive. These websites have massive collections of free eBooks.

You’re not likely to find any of the latest stories to hit the shelves here, but you can find lots of literary classics and academic manuscripts.

3. Do a Book Swap

Are you friends with a lot of book fiends? Are they also trying to get control over their book-buying habits? Then, you should host a book swap and exchange your favourite reads with each other. And if you can’t host an in-person swap, you can use these websites to swap books online with strangers across the country.

4. Write Reviews

There are companies that will send you ARCs (advanced reading copies) and eBooks for free, as long as you write honest reviews for them. So, if you feel comfortable doing a little bit of homework with your reading, check out websites like Reedsy Discovery and NetGallery.

5. Deal with Your To-Read Pile

You may not realize that you practice the art of Tsundoku — buying lots of books and then never reading them. You get too distracted by the shiny, new books to hit the stores to pay attention to the ones that are already sitting on your shelves.

So, if you’re wondering how you can get your hands on reading material without breaking the bank, you should look through the personal collection that you’ve already built. Turn that to-read pile into a have-read pile!

You don’t have to choose between your love of books and your financial stability. There’s no reason why you can’t enjoy both.

Photo by Sarah Pflug from Burst

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